Last Night’s Loss to Tampa Should Serve as the Wake Up Call This Devils Team Needs

The loss to Tampa was bad, and its just one game, but it also conjured up bad memories of last year’s Devils team that are hard to shake

If one didn’t watch Saturday’s OT loss to the Capitals and simply looked at the boxscore, they would see the Devils squandering a “1-0, us” start only to be trailing by 2 at the first intermission. They would see Nico Hischier’s effort to tie the game almost immediately to start the second period, only to again surrender two goals. They would see the Devils claw back in the third period to tie game, force overtime, and get a crucial point, only to ultimately lose the opportunity to get the second point against a divisional rival.

Some might recall one of the failures of last year’s Devils team being that their comeback attempts would fall short, in part because they dug themselves holes that were too deep to realistically dig out of. Poor defense, poor coaching, and poor goaltending will do that to you. As a result, they didn’t have nearly as many Bettman points as other teams in the division. Those points add up over the course of an 82 game season, and the efforts during the preceding 60 minutes of the game might be the difference between a loss and an overtime loss…..or an overtime loss and a win.

So in that respect, it would be easy to say “well, at least they got a point out of this” and chalk it up as a minor victory. Getting a hard-earned point when you’re trailing is good enough, right? Move on to the next one?

Needless to say, both Sheldon Keefe and Nico Hischier had choice words following the OT loss to Washington.

With that in mind and remembering that the Devils did manage to get a point out of that game whether they deserved it or not, I don’t even want to hazard a guess as to what last night’s game against Tampa was. If THOSE games were unacceptable, what the heck was last night?

I certainly have a few words to describe it.

It was incomprehensible with the Devils being the rested team going up against a Tampa team on the second half of a back-to-back that Tampa was the team that outworked, outgrinded, and outplayed the Devils in the manner they did. Tampa, a prideful team with many championship-pedigree players remaining from their title teams, was embarrassed in Toronto the night before and played with a purpose. I would’ve thought that a Devils team that presumably got read the riot act after the Washington game would’ve had a better effort than this coming off of a couple days off, but I guess not.

It was the imperfect combination of non-existent defense and abysmal goaltending that ultimately defined many recent seasons in New Jersey. And yes, some of the goals were a bit unlucky in terms of redirections, bounces, and whatever this carom off the boards was, but you create your own luck. When you consistently get to and defend the hard areas of the ice, those bounces will sometimes go your way. Yes, that does include a seeming innocuous chip out that takes a perfect redirection off of an imperfection in the boards, but make no mistake. When you play as poorly as the Devils did, you don’t deserve to get those breaks.

It was the tissue-paper soft brand of hockey that I thought was a thing of the past, as the Devils response to Erik Cernak’s big hit on Jesper Bratt was unacceptable. Both in terms of the Devils getting their own pound of flesh in response, but also with Tampa using that as a spark to go on and score five unanswered goals of their own. No, I don’t care that Paul Cotter got into it with Emil Lilleberg after the game was out of reach late in the second period. Where was Cotter or Brenden Dillon or Johnathan Kovacevic or anybody else when the game was still within reach? The only thing more unacceptable than the lack of response was Keefe’s dismissal of the hit in his postgame comments.

It was a Devils team that, after having success over the first seven games or so of working hard on the forecheck, being seemingly disinterested in continuing to do the hard work that one needs to do on this particular night.

In short, it was Lindy-era nonsense. An era and brand of Devils hockey that I thought was dead and gone but apparently is still lingering around in the bowels of the Prudential Center.

The problem with that is that Lindy Ruff is no longer the coach of this team. The team consistently playing in this manner last year saw to that. Lindy was a popular punching bag and deservedly so, but what this team does or doesn’t do going forward is no longer on him. Yet, this was as 2023-24 Devils as most of the letdown games this team played one season ago. Bad habits and a lack of attention to the details reared their ugly head and were a determining factor in the loss.

It’s on the players now to weed out these bad habits in their game. And bad habits apparently die hard.

To be clear, there are no excuses left. The goaltending was fixed, or so I thought. The defense was fixed, or so I thought. The team being soft was addressed, or so I thought. The coach who was a big part of the problem was replaced. This isn’t on anybody but the players now to prove that they’re beyond these types of efforts, and for one night early in the season, they failed to do so.

If you thought Keefe was angry after the Washington game, you could see the steam coming out of his ears in last night’s postgame.

With all of that said, its one game out of 82 against a Tampa team that is a perennial playoff team. No team is going to be on every single night. Just look at some of the scores from last night with Columbus beating Toronto, Buffalo beating Dallas, and Ottawa destroying an improved Utah team. It’s way too early to panic and there will be better nights ahead for this team.

We’ve talked a lot on these forums about the maturation process this Devils team needs to go through, and for the most part this season, the Devils have shown that growth. They’ve done a better job starting on time, having a workman-like attitude, and doing the things that one doesn’t really want to do but you need to do to win hockey games.

That is what makes nights like last night particularly frustrating.

Every team in this league will lose games at some point, but the difference between most teams and the great teams is that the great ones don’t put out efforts in three of the last four home games that would be deemed unacceptable. Great teams don’t give up 14 goals in two games on home ice. And yes, the quality of competition is noted but you’re not beating anybody hemorrhaging that many goals in that short a period of time. This isn’t a “the Devils can’t beat good teams” takeaway so much as its a “the Devils won’t beat anybody playing this way” takeaway.

The Devils are not a great team. Not yet.

They might be a good team that has talent at all the right positions, but if the Washington loss wasn’t the kick in the pants that this group needed, the Tampa loss better be.

Part of the maturation process is going through games like this and seeing to it that they don’t become a trend. Mistakes happen. Assignments will get missed. The puck will take weird hops or roll off on somebody’s shot attempt and yes, take a weird carom off the boards and inexplicably go into an empty net. Those things are inevitable. But there’s also no rest for the weary as Detroit and the Islanders are up next on Thursday and Friday. Those are the types of teams that the Devils need to beat to get to where they want to be.

We’ll see what type of response they ultimately have. Will the lingering remnants from last year see to it that this thing snowballs and this becomes an early season losing streak? Or will the Devils nip this in the bud here and now and take care of business against teams they need to beat in the Eastern Conference?

Stay tuned.